Picture a small
man in a smart police uniform riding toward you on a Segway. He is announcing
loudly: "No visa."

Only, I think he's saying "new visa," because there has obviously
been a mistake. I just flew approximately 13 hours to reach Beijing and the
other 34 members of the tour group are being stamped into China by customs.
Even my wife is being urged into the country.

I'm detained, passed along to a central desk. And now a higher
ranking female officer is telling me, quite memorably: "You go back. You go
back now." We had just arrived from San Francisco. But they are talking about
putting me on a plane to Hong Kong, either that or I spend Christmas night in
Chinese detention.

I'm not inclined to linger. On Dec. 4, I had visited an
immigration detention center. U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement had invited the press to see the county
lockup in Gadsden, Ala. That's because the non-profit Detention Watch Network
listed the facility among the 10 worst immigration holding areas in the United
States. The nonprofit cited lousy food, poor care and limited access to
visitors and called for its immediate closure.

During the tour I followed ICE suggestions and arranged follow-up
interviews with three inmates. But ICE has since ignored the requests, requests
filled out to their own specifications on their own forms. In short, they will not let me interview the
detainees. In Beijing, I would have
liked to have had someone to speak with.

I had paid a visa broker more than $200 to work with the
Chinese consulate in Houston to sort out my visa ahead of the trip. My wife and
I wanted to do some sightseeing and were, in particular, looking forward to spending
New Year's Eve in Shanghai.

I was dazed before I reached the counter. Half a day on a full
flight can do that.

An immigration official stamped my wife's visa, then raised
the stamp for mine. He hesitated. Then he announced that the visa
was expired. The visas arrived around Thanksgiving. My wife
could enter China through the end of 2013, but mine stated 2012. It was perhaps
a typo, a 2 instead of 3? Whatever the reason, the visa was little good to me
by the time the consulate sent it.

The man on the Segway arrived. He shooed away the people
waiting in line behind me and then led me away. I hoped briefly for reprieve, a
common sense solution. Instead talk turned to sending me out on the next flight to
where ever.

For a couple hours, I simply sat and waited. Eventually, about four hours
after we landed, they agreed to send my wife and me to Los Angeles. We had no
reason to go to LA and no connecting flights. She was made
to leave the airport, officially enter China and then re-enter the airport.

I was held in a detention area, half-heartedly searched by
five officers and eventually escorted directly onto the plane.

My detention lasted approximately five hours. In the Gadsden jail, a
man from Uzbekistan claimed he had been held for eight months. He wanted to
tell me, at least tell someone, his story.

ICE set rules for their media tour, no photos showing faces,
no use of inmate names. We agreed and adhered in order to return for the
follow-up interviews. If we wanted to interview an inmate, we could speak to
them and record their Alien Registration number. With ICE officials at my
elbow, I did just that.

The Gadsden jail tour had been a large one, and reporters
scattered into the central holding areas to shoot video footage or poke around.
More than a half dozen detainees approached me to talk, and three gave me names
and registration numbers. Others approached, but said they could not give their
information. One said he feared "repercussions." What did he have in mind? I
can't know that.

But I do know that ICE official Bryan Cox and Phil Miller immediately
ceased to respond to inquiries after the tour. ICE has ignored calls, emails and media interview requests filled out as they had specified. There has been no response at all.

Immigration detainees are short-term by definition, so those three individuals could have been removed by now. But Gadsden is an unusual lockup
for about 300 detainees facing open-ended stays. There are those who have no identifiable home
country, no easy place to send them. ICE
pointed out some had served criminal sentences and were awaiting deportation
after release from jail. What percentage committed a crime? They provided no
such information.

Bryan Cox and Philip Miller, right, with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, explained to reporters how to arrange for follow-up interviews just before a tour of the immigration detention facility in Gadsden, Ala., on Dec. 4. Etowah County officials are in the background. (Eric Schultz / eschultz@al.com)

They did say there are some detainees who are fighting
deportation through our immigration courts. If they don't agree to leave, ICE
is not obligated to release them. They can hold them until the case is
resolved, meaning the detainee finally agrees to deportation, or until ICE decides
to release them onto the streets of Gadsden. But some detainees are seeking political
asylum. And some are being held while protesting paperwork mistakes.

NBC did a story on an inmate in Gadsden who had filled out a
license for a motorcycle incorrectly, checking that he was a U.S. citizen when
he wasn't. He had even presented his Moldovan passport at the time. ICE detained him two
years later.

Lynn Leach Anderson, at left, joins others helping to assemble snack bags to take on Dec. 23 to immigration detainees being held in Gadsden, Ala. (Kay Campbell / kcampbell@al.com)

He lost his wife and house ended up despondent in Gadsden. Is that
unusual? Has to be, right?

Bryan Cox, with the ICE office in New Orleans, hasn't
returned calls since I sent him the requisite information for the three interview
requests. And I know he's getting the messages. A few weeks ago, I gave his
cell number to a local activist, Lynn Anderson, who read about the jail and
planned to organize Christmas gifts for the Gadsden detainees. She said Cox
took her call. And she took gifts to the jail, although she said she wasn't
allowed inside.

In China, I had done nothing criminal, I hadn't even made
the error. The visa broker accepted responsibility and eventually made good on
the expenses. I was never treated as a criminal, but all the same I faced a
night in custody. I accepted the "offer" to leave. By the clock, flying to LA that same night, the
holiday would last about 30 hours.